Collaborative Engineering for Enhanced Producibility by Ontology-Based Integration of Design and Production

Author(s):  
Fredrik Elgh ◽  
Staffan Sunnersjö

Many companies base their business strategy on customized products with a high level of variety and continuous functional improvements. For companies to be able to provide affordable products in a short time and be at the competitive edge, every new design must be adapted to existing production facilities. In order to ensure this, collaboration between engineering design and production engineering has to be supported. With the dispersed organisations of today combined with the increasing amount of information that has to be shared and managed, this collaboration is a critical issue for many companies. In this article, an approach for sharing and managing product and production information is introduced. The results are based on the experiences from a case study at a car manufacturer. By ontology-based integration, work within domains engineering design, production engineering and requirement management at the company was integrated. The main objectives with the integration were: support the formation of requirement specifications for products and processes, improve and simplify the information retrieval for designers and process planners, ensure traceability from changes in product systems to manufacturing systems and vice versa, and finally, eliminate redundant or multiple versions of requirement specifications.

2009 ◽  
pp. 1000-1019
Author(s):  
Fredrik Elgh ◽  
Staffan Sunnersjo

With today’s high product variety and shorter life cycles in automobile manufacturing, every new car design must be adapted to existing production facilities so that these facilities can be used for the manufacturing of several car models. In order to ensure this, collaboration between engineering design and production engineering has to be supported. Sharing information is at the core of collaborative engineering. By implementing an ontology approach, work within domains requirement management, engineering design, and production engineering can be integrated. An ontology approach, based on an information model implemented in a computer tool, supports work in the different domains and their collaboration. The main objectives of the proposed approach are supporting the formation of requirement specifications for products and processes, improved and simplified information retrieval for designers and process planners, forward traceability from changes in product systems to manufacturing systems, backward traceability from changes in manufacturing systems to product systems, and the elimination of redundant or multiple versions of requirement specifications by simplifying the updating and maintenance of the information.


Author(s):  
Fredrik Elgh

Many small and medium sized companies base their business strategy on their manufacturing processes. They are highly specialized in areas such as: die-casting, extrusion, machining, sintering, injection molding etc. The specialization is usually also focused on a limited number of material and alloys for the manufacturing process in question. These companies are commonly acting as subcontractors to other companies, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For the OEMs to be able to provide affordable products in a short time and to be at the competitive edge, every new design must be adapted to existing production facilities. In order to ensure this, collaboration between engineering design, at the OEM, and production engineering, at the subcontractors, has to be supported. With the dispersed organizations of today and the increasing amount of information that has to be shared and managed in the product realization process, this collaboration is a critical issue for many companies. A more intense collaboration is sought by many subcontractors as it will strengthen the business relation. To provide manufacturing knowledge and to be a partner in the product realization process is a means to outplay competitors. The purpose of this work is to investigate, explore, and develop a computerized method, i.e. an application system, to support the process planning and cost estimation in the quotation process. The main objective is to reveal concepts and principles to support application system development and utilization. The results are based on the experiences from a case study at a subcontractor of turned components.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amirreza Hooshyar Telegraphi ◽  
Akif Asil Bulgak

AbstractDue to the stringent awareness toward the preservation and resuscitation of natural resources and the potential economic benefits, designing sustainable manufacturing enterprises has become a critical issue in recent years. This presents different challenges in coordinating the activities inside the manufacturing systems with the entire closed-loop supply chain. In this paper, a mixed-integer mathematical model for designing a hybrid-manufacturing-remanufacturing system in a closed-loop supply chain is presented. Noteworthy, the operational planning of a cellular hybrid manufacturing-remanufacturing system is coordinated with the tactical planning of a closed-loop supply chain. To improve the flexibility and reliability in the cellular hybrid manufacturing-remanufacturing system, alternative process routings and contingency process routings are considered. The mathematical model in this paper, to the best of our knowledge, is the first integrated model in the design of hybrid cellular manufacturing systems which considers main and contingency process routings as well as reliability of the manufacturing system.


Metals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 537
Author(s):  
Alain Gil Del Val ◽  
Fernando Veiga ◽  
Mariluz Penalva ◽  
Miguel Arizmendi

Automotive, railway and aerospace sectors require a high level of quality on the thread profiles in their manufacturing systems knowing that the tapping process is a complex manufacturing process and the last operation in a manufacturing cell. Therefore, a multivariate statistical process control chart, for each tap, is presented based on the principal components of the torque signal directly measured from spindle motor drive to diagnosis the thread profile quality. This on-line multivariate control chart has implemented an alarm to avoid defected screw threads (oversized). Therefore, it could work automatically without any operator intervention assessing the thread quality and the safety is guaranteed during the tapping process.


2012 ◽  
Vol 229-231 ◽  
pp. 2562-2566
Author(s):  
Seyed Ali Hosseini ◽  
Amin Nosratabadi ◽  
Taravatsadat Nehzati ◽  
Napsiah Binti Ismail

The sustainability concept today is at the front lines of new technologies in manufacturing, products and work methodology. Be a sustainable manufacturer is critical issue to the future of manufacturing system. Various efforts have been conducted around the world to ensure the sustainability of manufacturing system. This study addresses current trend in sustainable manufacturing by focus on two major elements, which are facility design and production planning. Critical challenges are listed and future trends have been discussed.


Author(s):  
Anders V. Warell

Abstract In this paper it is argued that methods are needed for the design of a larger variety of product aspects than is feasible with mechanical engineering design methodology of today. Design methods found within the European schools of design are inadequate for the design of products other than machine systems of transforming character. The reason for this is that the underlying theories only describe the nature of ‘operand-transforming’ technical systems, and that the description of the process and function systems are too narrowly defined to be useful for the design of ‘non-transforming’ products, or for products where the human is involved as an active user. The paper takes as the standpoint that the functional language, in accordance with established foundation in engineering design theory, is a successful means to treat usability aspects of human-product systems. An extended process modeling view based on product life-phase thinking including a ‘use-process’ is presented, focusing the attention towards the use, and not merely the workings, of the product. Also, extended definitions of a number of concepts are proposed, and function-classes of the human-product system, leading to a more generally applicable use of functions as a modeling tool when describing products, is introduced. The proposed functional language is illustrated in a product case example.


Author(s):  
Irina GRIGORE ◽  
Severin CAZANESCU ◽  
Raluca Alexandra CAZANESCU

In our days, communities have to face high level of water and food consumption based on uncertain supplies and growing demands. Thus, they work to prevent floods, soil erosion, to supply fresh water for population, industry and irrigation and to redirect streams and rivers in order to increase the food production. On the other hand, climate changes increased the frequency of extreme events like droughts and floods, and water management became a matter of great concern, in order to protect and preserve fertile land and drinkable water resources. Powerful software are needed to help environmental specialists to develop reliable projects for sustainable land development, in a short time. In the present paper, we will briefly present AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010, the most powerful software application released by Autodesk Inc., a short time ago. Using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 components together with new set of extensions, named Hydraflow Extension, land development specialists can deal with a large variety of hydrologic and hydraulic aspects, such as delineating watersheds and drainage areas and computing time of concentration and other rainfall-runoff relationship for the designated basins.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Bryden ◽  
Scott Ferguson

Abstract This paper examines decision making under radical uncertainty in engineering design, that is, engineering decision making in those situations where it is not possible to know the outcomes and/or construct the utility functions and probabilities needed to support rational-human decision making. In these situations, despite being faced with radical uncertainty, engineers do (and must) proceed forward in a linear, clear, and predictable manner. Yet, they may not proceed in a manner that is well described by current engineering design frameworks. Examining the role of decision making in business and other social enterprises, Tuckett and Nikolic [1] have proposed conviction narrative theory (CNT) to describe how rational decision-makers confronted with situations in which insufficient information is available to support traditional decision-making tools use narrative and intuition to reach convincing and actionable decisions. This paper proposes that, in a manner similar to what is described in CNT, narrative and engineering judgment play a critical role in engineering design situations dominated by radical uncertainty. To that end, this paper integrates the traditional rational-human view of decision making as expressed by Hazelrigg in the well-known Decision-Based Design (DBD) framework and CNT as proposed by Tuckett and Nikolic. In the resulting rational, narrative-based design framework, narrative structures are used to describe and develop design alternatives and provide the ideas, beliefs, and preferences needed by the DBD framework. The resulting preferred design is expressed as a narrative and tested using engineering judgement. Specifically, the goal of the design process is expressed as a high-level guiding narrative that fosters the development of design narratives (design alternatives), and ultimately results in a convincing narrative that describes the preferred design. The high-level guiding narrative outlines the event(s), entity(s), preferences, and beliefs needed to support the design. The design narratives are narrative fragments that are nested within the high-level narrative and include the proposed action (idea), the specific challenges that the design faces, and the possible (but not yet verified) outcomes. The convincing narrative is the validated, preferred option that results from the DBD analysis and optimization process and is reviewed using engineering judgement. Following development of the rational, narrative-based design framework, the value of the framework is discussed within the context of practical engineering design.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document